It comes as no surprise that, when asked what is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word hockey, fans and non-fans alike will answer with fighting. I mean, fighting has been part of the game since the very beginning (which happens to be the late 1800s in case you’re wondering) and hockey is obviously the only sport in the US and Canada that openly allows it to occur during games.

Now, it would be a gross overstatement to say that just because hockey is known for fighting that every team in the league is also known for fighting, because let me tell you that is not the case. One of the most notable fighting teams is, of course, the big, bad Boston Bruins.Let me give you some background on just why exactly the Boston Bruins are known for being so big and so bad. Back in the 1960’s and 1970’s, the Bruins had picked up guys like Phil Esposito and Ken Hodge and boasted long time players like Dallas Smith and the legendary Bobby Orr. If you have never seen any of these players, I’ll let you in on a little secret: they’re gigantic. Gigantic and very short tempered. And they knew it. They knew it, the fans knew it, other teams knew it (and if they didn’t they certainly found out quickly and probably regretted their decision to play that day) So, of course, coaches Harry Sinden and Tom Johnson took full advantage of the opportunity.

The team adopted a very physical play style, using their size and strength to create turnovers and push through defensive lines. But the most interesting part of the game always came when someone made Boston angry (which was often). So often that the Bruins tallied 335 fights in 7 seasons with their peak coming during the 1970-1971 season, which had 67 fights in 89 games. And they were great fighters too, winning an average of 57% of their fights, per dropyourgloves.com. Then, as suddenly as it started, the Big Bad Bruins phenomenon stopped. For some unknown reason the Bruins simmered down and went into a Stanley Cup drought. Until 2011 that is, when the Bruins rejuvenated the name and the hopes of fans everywhere as they fought (93 times) their way to a Stanley Cup. Many of these fights came from Shawn Thornton, a 6’2”, 217 pound monster of a man with a mean right hook and no flight response. His fighting, gave the team energy and assured them that they would be protected.

And then it stopped, again. During the off season, the Bruins made the startling announcement that Thornton would not be resigned. This came as a major blow to both the team and the fans, who always enjoyed watching Thornton go to town on the face of whatever poor soul decided it was a good idea to mess with his cubs. But people quickly got angry when the fans found out the reason for the cut. Bruins General Manager Peter Chiarelli told everyone that the team was “trending away from that fighting style.” Excuse me, what?It got worse when Chiarelli signed Bobby Robins, an almost identical player in terms of size to Thornton who is known for trying to stab another player with his skate blade. Excuse me, WHAT?

The question became “why would you let go of Thornton if you were just going to sign another enforcer?” It would have been a bit more acceptable if Robins had more to offer offensively to the Bruins. But that is far from the case.Since this is Robins first year in the NHL, comparing his stats to Thornton’s decade career isn’t fair. So we’ll look at their AHL careers. Robins scored 36 goals over the course of 9 AHL seasons. Thornton scored 57 goals in the same amount of time. Robins had 37 assists while Thornton had a whopping 96. Now, if we look at the entirety of their careers out of the NHL, and look at the penalty minutes each took, they numbers are similar. Thornton took 2468 penalty minutes while Robins took 2144 minutes, which is not much of a difference if the Bruins are looking to move away from that style of play. Also, Robins has been suspended 3 times for fighting while Thornton has been suspended once in the entirety of his career, both AHL and NHL. Looking at their current statistics, there’s no way the “moving away from that style” argument is holding up. There have been four fights in eight games just this season, which is four fights under where we were last season after 8 games. However, Shawn Thornton only accounted for 3 of those 8 fights, while obviously he is accounting for none now.

So how exactly does Chiarelli have the grounds to say we’re moving away from that type of hockey? Your guess is as good as mine. But all I’m saying is that there was something underlying letting go of Shawn Thornton and it certainly wasn’t fighting. My best guess is it has something to do with a word that begins with m and ends in oney because we all know Chiarelli is actually incompetent when it comes to cap space. On the bright side, the Bruins have since moved Robins down to the AHL. But it doesn't make the loss hurt any less.

So, should Bruins fans be happy with the fact that we let go of Thornton? Absolutely not. Should we blame the fact that he fights too much for it? Absolutely not. This is just another example of the Bruins management making a poor decision. Will they ever learn?Probably not.